Pakistan wants conditionless dialogue with neighbours

Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi today sought an intensive dialogue between the South Asian neighbours without any conditions.

"It doesn't take much genius to understand that terrorists threats require more intensive dialogue between South Asian neighbours, accompanied by a sincerity of purpose and resolving disputes rather than pauses and conditionalities," Qureshi said in his address to the Council on Foreign Relations: a Washington-based think tank.

As the region is facing serious threat from terrorism, he said that it makes no sense that instead of pooling their resources to fight terrorism, they squander these to threaten the other.

"Instinctive reactions, coupled with hasty and unsubstantiated accusations, strengthen the very forces that we profess to defeat," said Qureshi, who is currently on a three-day visit to Washington to meet Congressional leaders and top officials of the Obama administration.

"It is fine to move beyond the rhetoric. Each country has to stand up to terrorism and be counted. Cold War calculations to gain short-term advantages have no relevance in these times. Long-term interests of all countries of the region lie in promoting stability and work towards socio-economic uplift of the people of the region," he argued.

Replying to a question, he said the groups responsible for the Mumbai terrorist attack are not a friend of Pakistan and needs to be checked, curtailed and shut. "Organisations that carried out the acts those results in Mumbai attack are certainly no friend to Pakistan because through those acts they not only killed people they could have triggered off something more serious than that," Qureshi said.

"We have to guard against that mindset. In the interest of stability and peace in the region, it is in the interest of Pakistan's enlightened self-interest to normalise and live in peace with India. The Government of Pakistan believes that these organisations have to be checked, curtailed and shut," he asserted.

His remarks comes even as the Pakistani Army and the ISI have been reportedly trying to push Taliban militants inside Jammu and Kashmir. India has insisted that Pakistan needs to show commitment and progress that it is taking action against those responsible for the Mumbai terrorist attack. 

Qureshi had met external affairs minister SM Krishna in New York last month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session. Though the meeting was said to be fruitful by both sides, no dates have been set for the next round of talks between the two South Asian neighbours.

In response to another question, Qureshi said the US civilian nuclear deal with India is discriminatory.

"And when you sign agreements that are discriminatory in nature it does not help," he said in direct reference to the civilian nuclear deal with India, which was signed by the then US president George W Bush last year.